Chicken a la SeeDanCook

 
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 10-15 min
Total Cook Time: 20-25 min

I thought I had come up something clever. Having gone to the grocery store 4 days ago, we were beginning to run out things to make for dinner. We had some chicken breasts hangin’ out in the fridge, but not much more than that. This recipe came to me the night before I made it for the first time, right before I fell asleep, and I thought it would be a great way to utilize the seemingly random list of ingredients we had in the house. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized that all I did was come up with a modified Chicken Marsala recipe (basically, a Marsala without the Marsala wine). Whatever…the wife and I enjoyed this, perhaps even more so than the Marsala dish.

Ingredients:
2 skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp adobo seasoning – used to season the flour. I had some left over from when I made rice and peas. As a substitute, feel free to add some salt, pepper, and garlic powder to the flour and be done with it.
1/4 cup olive oil
10 oz sliced mushrooms – I used just the plain, boring white button mushrooms but you can use really any type
2 shallots – finely diced
1/4 – 1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 – 1/2 cup beef stock – I didn’t have any chicken stock in the house but I did have beef stock. Either works fine. I also didn’t really measure out the wine or stock exactly, I just eyeballed it
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp half-n-half or butter
3 tbsp Italian flat leaf parsley – finely chopped

The first thing is to combine the flour and seasoning in a large enough container…you want something that will be big enough for a chicken breast.

Next you’re going to want to pound out, or tenderize the chicken breasts. Grab a cutting board and some plastic wrap and lay a sheet of wrap down on the cutting board, then place the chicken in the wrap (on the board) and cover the chicken with more plastic wrap. Take your meat tenderizer (you’ve got one of those, right? If not, the smooth bottom of a heavy skillet/pan will do) and pound the chicken all over until it is about 3/4 inch in thickness all around. In addition to tenderizing the meat, I like to pound out the chicken because 1) it evens out the size of the chicken so it cooks evenly 2) it makes the chicken thinner so it cooks faster.

Take your pounded out chicken breasts and place them in the container with the seasoned flour, covering them lightly. This is called dredging. You’ll want to find a large saute pan to cook the chicken in, preferably something that is not non-stick, otherwise the chicken won’t brown properly. Put the pan over medium-high heat and let it get hot, then add the oil. Shake off any excess flour from the chicken and add it to the pan. The chicken should cook for 5 min before flipping it. When you flip it, it should be golden brown, if not let it for another min or so. Cook on the other side for another 5 min, then remove the chicken from the pan and set it aside.

Add the shallots and the mushrooms to the pan, add a good pinch of kosher salt, give it all a good stir, turn the heat down to medium, and cover. Give this about 5 min to cook…the mushrooms should start to release some good juices. Add the wine and stock, turn the heat back up to get the sauce to boil. Let it reduce for a min or 2, turn the heat down to medium-low, and add the chicken. Let it cook for another 2 min or so, then add the rest of the ingredients (including any salt/pepper to taste) and serve immediately.